We are sitting at her Dad's house in Turners Falls when I nervously ask him permission to marry his daughter. "So you guys are pregnant," he says flatly. It wasn't a question.
Back at our tiny apartment in Nashua, Amber asks hesitantly, "Do you think we should have the baby?"
"It will forever change our life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral. "I know," she says, sensing that she might already be regretting missing out on her youth, and a professional career yet to begin.
I look deeply into my future wife's eyes and see our unborn child and the mother to be. She will feel fat and unattractive and worry about "mom pooch", no matter how I reassure her of her beauty and radiance, or that she is carrying our son or daughter.
We will attend every child birthing, parenting, and home safety class that time and work will permit me to attend. She will insist on owning every book on parenting she can get her hands on: What to Expect When You're Expecting, What to Expect the First Year, What to Expect the Toddler Years, The Girlfriends' Guide [to everything under the sun]. Our Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, and Stuff will be replaced by Parenting, Child, and American Baby. Anne Geddes photography will capture her imagination and adorn our apartment, and Mozart and Vivaldi will be part of her staple music collection.
There will be nights for which she will send me to the midnight window at Burger King to satisfy a double quarter pounder craving with extra mayo. And nights of rubbing coco butter on her expanding belly. And there will be days of screaming and crying and laughing all within a span of 60 seconds. We will spend countless hours poring over each of the 35,000+ names in the baby name book to ensure one is chosen which is fitting the would-be lord ruler of all the world. And every waking minute we will worry if we were making the right choices.
On the day of his birth, everything we have learned about having a baby will be forgotten, including that it was not just my idea. But her face will beam with pride and admiration at the work she has wrought, her magnum opus, her son. Erik Tiernan, his name meaning lord and ruler, will be her pride and joy.
She will wrinkle her nose while changing that first diaper, and not care if that was a genuine smile on his face, or just gas. She will insist on a co-side sleeper in our bedroom, and that it is my turn, even if it isn't. Placing her child above all others, even herself, she would give her life in an instant to save his.
However self-confident she may be in public or private, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.
Looking at my lovely wife, I will see her grow more beautiful each day as she insists on losing all the pounds that I never noticed she put on. She will be a stellar professional in her career to ensure the best, safest, and happiest life for our son. Her life's goals, although seemingly her own, will be to help him accomplish his.
She will celebrate his first words, first steps, first potty, but will fret beyond any husband's (or father's) understanding when leaving him on his first day at daycare. She will exhult in his first drawing, scrutinize his first girlfriend, and email -- nay spam -- most of the civilized world with everything about him she deems newsworthy.
She will take joy seeing the world through her child's eyes, and will see in him all the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the future. She will bless him with her wit, charm, and ambition, and will temper his dynamic energy with love, discipline, and understanding.
When he tells her he loves Mommy, it will melt her heart. And every time she hears his laugh, she will stop everything she is doing to turn her face toward the sound.
My future wife turns to me with a quizzical look as I finally say with tears in my eyes, "We will never regret it."